e of _Villers_ was spelt _fourteen_ different ways in the
deeds of that family.

I shall illustrate this subject by the history of the _names_ of two of
our most illustrious countrymen, Shakspeare and Rawleigh.

We all remember the day when a violent literary controversy was opened,
nor is it yet closed, respecting the spelling of our poet's name. One
great editor persisted in his triumphant discovery, by printing
_Shakspere_, while another would only partially yield, _Shakspeare_; but
all parties seemed willing to drop the usual and natural derivation of
his name, in which we are surely warranted from a passage in a
contemporary writer, who alludes by the name to a conceit of his own, of
the _martial_ spirit of the poet.[118] The truth seems to be, then, that
personal names were written by the ear, since the persons themselves did
not attend to the accurate writing of their own names, which they
changed sometimes capriciously, and sometimes with anxious nicety. Our
great poet's name appears _Shakspere_ in the register of Stratford
church; it is _Shakspeare_ in the body of his will, but that very
instrument is indorsed Mr. _Shackspere's_ will. He himself has written
his name in two different ways, _Shakspeare_ and _Shakspere_. Mr. Colman
says, the poet's name in his own county is pronounced with the first _a_
short, which accounts for this mode of writing the name, and proves that
the orthoepy rather than the orthography of a person's name was most
attended to; a very questionable and uncertain standard.[119]

Another remarkable instance of this sort is the name of Sir Walter
_Rawley_, which I am myself uncertain how to write; although I have
discovered a fact which proves how it should be pronounced.

Rawley's name was spelt by himself and by his contemporaries in all
sorts of ways. We find it Ralegh, Raleigh, Rawleigh, Raweley, and Rawly;
the last of which at least preserves its pronunciation. This great man,
when young, subscribed his name "Walter _Raweley_ of the Middle Temple"
to a copy of verses, prefixed to a satire called the Steel-Glass, in
George Gascoigne's Works, 1576. Sir Walter was then a young student, and
these verses, both by their spirit and signature, cannot fail to be his;
however, this matter is doubtful, for the critics have not met elsewhere
with his name thus written. The orthoepy of the name of this great man I
can establish by the following fact. When Sir Walter was first
introduced to James